


And if you're breathing in the morning, make your bed again

by jeanquirieplus (wireless)



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-22
Updated: 2010-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:52:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wireless/pseuds/jeanquirieplus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie and Andrew on various days through the months spent on Banika and Pavuvu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And if you're breathing in the morning, make your bed again

**Author's Note:**

> Still unbetaed (and there are probably a metric ton of issues with it). I edited together all the Banika snapshots I'd written, and it turned into a very, very long character study revolving entirely around Haldane's cot. Title from a Kat Flint song.

"What's that, babe?"

Andrew stopped and twisted in his seat to stare at Eddie, who was still parked cross-legged on his cot fiddling with his guitar.

It was in the vicinity of dinnertime, and Eddie had been plucking for about 30 minutes, give or take ten. He did this almost every evening. Andrew would wander into his tent around six in order to get his paperwork squared away, and Eddie would typically be sprawled all over his cot dripping on his books and cradling his guitar (or, rather, Caroline, whom he had been formally introduced to).

"What did you just call me?" His face split into a grin. The pen he'd been using to write up the daily status reports (the reports were never-ending, just like the rain, the crabs, the rats, and the bitching of the marines) dripped ink onto his water-discolored army issued trousers but he ignored it.

Eddie's head snapped up and his eyes widened. "Wha- oh. I do apologize sir, I meant no disrespect, I just wasn't mindin'-"

Andrew cut him off with a wave of the pen-wielding hand, splattering the canvas of the tent with tiny dots that immediately ran with moisture. "No, no Eddie, what did you call me?" He wasn't sure, he might have misheard. He needed this intel.

Eddie went a violent shade of red and stared down at his fingers, which had stilled on the strings. Andrew felt his grin widen of its own accord.

Eddie swallowed and his eyes darted up to Andrew and then back down to the guitar. "I, uh. I called you babe," he said softly. Andrew was conscious that he was smiling like a lunatic and probably scaring his best officer, but there was very little he could do about it.

"Okay," he said brightly. "Alright." Eddie looked bewildered. "Just don't do it in front of the men," he added sagely.

Eddie stared at him, fish-like. Then he laughed, disbelieving, and resumed playing. Andrew turned back to his paperwork feeling lighter than he had in weeks, which was good considering his gesticulations had grained the paper with a smattering of black blots and rendered it illegible. He was probably going to have to redo it all.

"Sure thing babe," he heard whispered from behind him, as Eddie started picking through a spirited rendition of After the Ball.

 

* * *

 

"What?" His lieutenant looked scandalized. It was the most violent expression Andrew had ever seen displayed on Eddie's normally calm features.

"Well, no. We don't typically have hootenannies in Massachusetts." Andrew put the ancient issue of Life Magazine he'd been reading down on his desk. A few pages detached themselves and he sighed. The humidity levels were atrocious. He couldn't decide if he hated them more than the crabs, or if they were in fact about equally horrifying.

Eddie eyed him skeptically. He was upside down, so the effect was slightly ruined. "I can't believe you've never gone to a dance."

Andrew shrugged. "That's not true, I've been to plenty of dances."

"Not proper ones," Eddie mumbled. "You probably waltzed or some such disgrace. Like a damn debutante."

Andrew gave a quiet laugh at that. "I'm a pretty dab hand at the Charleston but I'm hopeless at picking out gowns."

Eddie snorted and strummed Caroline in what Andrew assumed was disgust. She twanged more whenever Eddie was distressed.

He'd come in this afternoon to find his lieutenant draped sideways over his cot, with his legs extended upwards against the canvas wall and his head dangling upside down over the side. Caroline lay on his stomach and partially masked the way his shirt rode up to expose a sliver of pale skin. The unorthodox position did not hamper his playing in the least. Andrew was even more impressed than usual.

Eddie set the guitar down and stared at Andrew with his arms crossed. He looked so serious Andrew couldn't help but laugh at him. He extended a leg over and nudged him in the shoulder with the tip of his boot.

"Listen, if it's so important to you why don't I just come to one of your hoedowns." He smiled indulgently as Eddie's expression went sheepish. "Yes, I do know about them. No, I don't mind that you have them. I realize you're close to the men."

Eddie sat up and folded his legs down from the side of the tent. Once righted, he swiveled to face Andrew and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Andrew flipped a page and tried to fool himself into believing that he was genuinely interested in what was ostensibly an article about Marlene Dietrich's habit of taking wax baths.

"Well, alright. Except we're going to have to ask one of the other officers to come too," said Eddie after a beat, breaking the silence.

Andrew put down the magazine. "Why's that?"

"Well, sir," continued Eddie, and Andrew struggled to understand why his use of the honorific rankled so much, "the point of this exercise is to teach you how to dance like a man, and not- pardon me, not like a trained poodle-" Eddie paused and gauged his countenance, uncertainly. Andrew plastered an expression of magnanimous benevolence on his face and waved him on. "-A trained poodle in an expensive tuxedo, so we need to pair you up with a dance partner and that should obviously be another officer."

"Oh," he replied mildly.

Eddie nodded. "Right, because I'm the only one who can play the guitar and if I put you with one of the enlisted they'll have a heart attack. And," he smiled, "I simply don't trust Gunny with your virtue."

"Ah." Andrew let that sink in. "Well, we can invite Stumpy."

Eddie ducked his head and bit his lower lip like he was trying to hold in a laugh. "In that case you better go requisition a corsage, sir."

Andrew rolled his eyes and re-opened Time. Marlene swam a little in front of his eyes. "You're a regular comedian, Hillbilly. When do you expect me at this alleged cultural event?"

Eddie stood and grabbed his guitar by the neck. "Round seven thirty, sir? Right by the oil drums."

Andrew nodded without looking at him and flipped another page, something about the Kuomintang. It too detached. "Now get the hell out of my tent, Lieutenant." He looked up in time to watch the tent flap fall back into place, and felt strangely empty.

 

* * *

 

"What do you think of?" For once their positions were reversed, and Eddie straddled the chair while Andrew lay on the cot. He'd been reading letters from home as Eddie stared into space, chin resting on his arms, which were crossed over the top of the chair back. He was humming a song that Andrew had tentatively placed as a version of Lonesome Traveler, but he couldn't be sure. Caroline had stayed home today.

"When?" He folded the letter and set it on his stomach. It was full of reassurances from home- his sister wrote exclusively reassuring letters. For news he had to wait for his father and most of that was about the textile mill or the rumor among the workers. The old man seemed to get an endless kick out of the new, mostly female workforce.

"In combat. Now. I don't rightly know. What do you think of?" Eddie peered at him intently, body very still. Andrew squirmed a little under the focus.

"Home. Air strike protocols. Ernest Hemingway. You're going to have to be more specific." He picked the letter up and stuffed it back into its envelope.

Eddie chewed the inside of his mouth and looked away. "When you lead a charge, what do you think of?"

Andrew gave the man in front of him an appraising look. "If you're looking for a standard to compare yourself to, I don't think there is one. Officers don't run around reciting Xenophon to themselves in the middle of a firefight." That was technically a lie. Andrew had found himself more often than not saying _thálatta, thálatta_ under his breath after each successively annihilated banzai charge.

Eddie furrowed his brow at him. "Xenophon?"

Andrew shook his head. "Greek soldier. It doesn't matter, you know what I mean."

Eddie's face went blank. Andrew felt an unusual tug of despair pass over him and scrambled for the correct words. He sighed.

"Eddie, you're a brilliant officer. I wouldn't have pushed for your commission if I hadn't thought you could do it. You're vastly superior to the raw officers we get as replacements. Your ability to inspire men to run through mortar fire isn't dependent upon whether or not you have a degree." Eddie nodded hesitatingly at that, and Andrew's relief was so sharp he imagined that it was palpable. He cracked a grin. "Does this mean you don't work for a living anymore?"

Eddie smiled back slowly and shook his head. "Nah. Now I just run like hell." The light streaming in through the entrance was the good sort, the pink sort, the kind that promised at least fifteen minutes of clement weather in the morning. It caught on Eddie's lashes and turned them almost gold. Andrew felt the absurd urge to pass the pads of his fingers over them.

Eddie reached down to fiddle with a hole in his trousers. "I still want to know what it is you think about, Ack-Ack." Andrew followed the motion of his fingers on the tear, considered how he could possibly answer that question.

"I think about Joshua Chamberlain a whole lot."

"The general?" Eddie looked up and tilted his head to the side, listening.

"Yes. He taught at Bowdoin, at my college, before volunteering with the 20th Maine. He's half the reason I talked to the recruiter, when the time came." Andrew took a breath, ordered his words. He hadn't tried to explain this before. "He was a great man, a great leader of men. I try to find some of that in me when I have to ask the boys to face down one more charge, take one more hill. I'm not sure-" he stuttered, briefly, cast about for the correct phrasing. "I don't know what that quality is. What makes a man like General Chamberlain. It's some kind of love, of devotion, but I don't know-" He paused, a half-smile on his face. "See, this is why I didn't study English. I don't have the words for these things."

He met Eddie's eyes and was surprised to see the other man regarding him with an unfamiliar expression, equal parts affection and pride. "You do just fine, Skip," he said softly.

Andrew found himself flustered. He jutted his chin out towards Eddie. "What do you think of?" He sat up, hands gripping his knees.

Eddie caught a far away look. "I think of my little sister." He smiled softly, something in his face reminding Andrew of the careful gentleness he exhibited towards the younger replacements. "Ada. She was real little when I left home, just five. I took care of her when she was a baby." He looked at Andrew and grinned. "She was quick as a whip, even when she couldn't talk. She'd get Da to do just about anythin' for her. My father worked in the slate quarries up North. He crashed a truck when I was thirteen, never walked again. She could brighten him up in ways none of the rest of us could." Eddie shook his head and ran a hand through hair, making it stand on end. "She cried and cried when I left. Couldn't do a damn a thing to make her stop. I worry I'll never see her again and that she'll hold it against me." He looked at Andrew, his features tinged with a low-grade desperation that hadn't been there until after Gloucester. "She's fourteen years old now, I missed her growin' up. Missed scarin' off her boyfriends. Better be for a good reason. That's what I think of."

Andrew reached out and placed a hand on Eddie's shoulder. "It is. We've got to believe that it is," he said, gently. Eddie smiled at him hollowly. "Yes, yes I reckon we do."

 

* * *

 

When he makes it back to his tent it's already past nine. He comes in through the penumbra, instinctively circumventing the chair he'd left in the middle of the small space and makes his way to the cot on the far side of the canvas wall. He misses his mother in these moments, as he attempts to navigate in the dark. She had always made sure there was nothing lethal to trip over when he was a boy.

He doesn't think to look down until he's unbuckling his belt, shirt already untucked. When he does, he notices a body on the cot. Eddie's curled up on his side, asleep, his head turned, bird-like, into his shoulder. Andrew stops undressing himself and watches the other man. He counts the deep rise and falls of his too-apparent rib cage, tries to memorize how the shadows fall across the planes of his face. He thinks of yesterday afternoon in the supply tent, how this man's sum of muscle and sinew and bone had felt under his hands. There isn't enough light for the sort of in-depth looking he wants to do, so he drops to his knees and reaches out to shift his exploration into the more reliable realm of touch.

Eddie wakes up slowly while his fingers linger over the boney jut of his collarbone. He makes a soft, sleepy noise and turns his face up to look at Andrew, eyes heavy-lidded.

"Hi," says Andrew. His voice catches when Eddie reaches over and brushes his knuckles over his cheekbone. "C'mere," he whispers, voice rough with sleep, and shifts as much as the narrow bed will allow. It's a request with the same undeniable power as gravity, or time. Andrew imagines he'd have more luck breaking several laws of physics than resisting it.

He slides himself next to Eddie and leans into him at the same time as Eddie shifts forward. Their noses collide and Eddie laughs quietly. Andrew doesn't care. The quick flash of pain doesn't even penetrate the haze of indefinable feeling he's drowning in right now. He can't see Eddie clearly because the tent is dark, but he knows where to put his hands and he wishes he could see the expression that accompanies the small gasp he elucidates when his hand strokes down to the jut of a sharp hip bone. Eddie, who has always seemed able to read his mind, pushes his face into Andrew's neck. He can't see him, but he can feel his reactions now, how his eyes squeeze close, how his breath quickens or stops entirely for seconds at a time. He loops his right arm around Eddie's shoulders and holds him there, cradled against him, as he brushes his fingertips down the taller man's abdomen and under the waistband of his uniform pants.

They can't afford to make much noise. Eddie muffles small sounds into the hollow of Andrew's throat, thrusts almost silently into Andrew's hand when it finally closes over him. It's not perfect. It's too dry, and the angle is awkward. Andrew has difficulty finding a rhythm, even though this is no different than taking himself in hand. And yet, it also seems completely alien. The heat is far more pervasive, and he doesn't know what Eddie likes, how much pressure to apply. But it is perfect, it is, because Eddie clutches at him and murmurs nonsense that's full of want, remembers himself and makes an abortive attempt at undoing Andrew's fly before twisting his hand into the cotton of his undershirt. Andrew finishes for him, pushes them together in the palm of his hand, slick with sweat and not much else. The satin feel of skin on skin, and the knowledge that he's doing this to someone he would die for without a second thought whites out the physical world and it's been so, so long.

He comes back to himself, panting. Eddie is wrapped around him and stroking his side, the skin still slightly too sensitive, and there's a sticky mess between them, but he's so drunk on sensation he doesn't mind. Eddie presses his lips to his neck and then shifts back up to kiss him on the mouth, hands holding his face in place, thumbs making abstract patterns on his temples. Andrew breaks away for air and shudders, fingers tightening on Eddie's hips. "Jesus Eddie, I-"

Eddie pushes close again and stops him talking by leaning their faces together so that his mouth hovers a hair's breadth away from Andrew's. They aren't kissing, but they are breathing each other's air and every inhalation brushes their lips together, feather light.

"Andrew, listen to me," whispers Eddie without opening his eyes, his soft drawl more pronounced than usual. He brings his right hand up to card lightly through Andrew's hair, but he leaves the left one trapped between them, palm against Andrew's heart, steadying him. "I didn't go to college. While you were in school, I was plantin' trees for Roosevelt. I didn't read the books you read, I didn't learn the words you have to explain things. But I do know a few truths anyway, and one of the most important ones," he pauses and kisses Andrew lightly again, because he can, " _the_ most important one, I figure, is that there are some things you shouldn't try to put words on because those things are sacred and words are cheap. Even long, fancy ones, even ones in Greek. And this is one of those things." He punctuates his statement with another kiss, another light slide of his fingers against the nape of Andrew's neck. "This is somethin' you just have to breath through instead," he finishes with a small smile.

He shifts back down and pushes his face back into the junction between Andrew's neck and shoulder. His eyelashes brush against the pulse point. "Of course," he continues after a moment, "if you feel the urge to serenade me I won't argue with you. Just don't let the replacements see, they're confused enough as it is."

Andrew snorts into Eddie's hair and he feels the other man's answering smile curve against his skin. He's right, of course. Andrew could spend years and millions of words trying to describe this. He could compare it to the thrum of blood through the body, the elemental vastness of the cosmos, the ineffability of every human faith, the sum total of all the stories, and the poems, and the songs birthed by the multitudes in the face of overwhelming emotion. He could do that, but so many better men have tried to do it before him and so few have ever come close to elucidating the all-encompassing reality of it. There's a simple enough formula for this, after all, and it echoes through his mind every day, every time he lays eyes on Eddie, any time he so much as thinks of him.

Eddie's face is still slotted against his neck, so it's easy to simply lean over and drop "I love you" into his ear.


End file.
